A few weeks ago, I attended a luncheon where Danesh De Silva, Vice President of Marketing at Orametrix, presented a great case study on how he had used marketing automation technology to transform his company’s marketing operations and the ROI he’s gotten. When Dan was finished with his story, one of the people at my table shook his head sadly. “He’s so right. I know that I could do great things if I just had the right tools. But how do I ‘sell’ marketing automation to my boss?” It’s a common question. A marketing director or even vice president of marketing becomes convinced Read More

At the PIMA Mid-Year Conference in Colorado Springs last week, a panel of marketing experts took the stage to talk about solving some of the most painful problems in multi-channel marketing. In the hour-long session, the quartet of speakers focused on five major pain points common in distributed multichannel marketing organizations. Managing channel silos efficiently online or offline, inbound or outbound, corporate and local. Building or recruiting expertise as channels keep proliferating, and the increasing complexity requires new skills that many marketers simply don’t have. Determining ROI with some of the newer channels — what is a Facebook fan really Read More

Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories marketers shouldn’t miss because they offer key information or lessons that multi-channel distributed marketing organizations should take to heart. All five of the selected articles demonstrate the deep divides in how companies are addressing social media — and point up why integrating the medium’s “split personality” is likely to be a key challenge for marketers as the social network grows and evolves. “Blame Grandpa” Defense Strategy Originated Online — A jury consultant working for Florida murder defendant Casey Anthony has reported that the controversial defense strategy which blamed Caylee Anthony’s grandfather originated with social Read More